Pandora's Box (1929)

Pretty Good

It is a performances centric movie

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

'Pandora's Box' is what 'It' might have looked had it been written by Erich von Stroheim and directed by FW Murnau. Instead of a romantic comedy, we get a softly lit noir where the sexy flirtatious girl is caught up in a web of crime and devious desires. The Greek myth of Pandora claims her to be a beautiful charming girl who brings evil to all around her, and with Lulu representing Pandora, the film doesn't deviate from this script, although as one misadventure brings about another, we see her get a weighty dose of Karma, and become quite a memorable anti-hero. Just as Lulu's flaws are laid bare however, so are those of the male characters, who one after the other fall for her, and bring their own wickedness to the frame.Not being familiar with the story before watching, and not quite understanding the censorship in place in 1929, I wasn't sure if she was a prostitute or not (it is heavily hinted at, rather than shown explicitly). It made sense in the number of men she lead on, but not in the way they appeared to desire her love and marriage, while another who claimed to be her father acted more like a wannabe over. Even the newly married husband thought he was not father but lover, and wanted to kill because of it. Surely the groom wouldn't make that mistake! The uncertainty made the plot hard to swallow at times, and enticingly mysterious at others, so it was a double edged sword, but either way neither she nor any of the characters are particularly likable. At over two hours the film drags a bit, too much I think for anyone previously unfamiliar with silents, and with Lulu's unlikely escapes from the law, you need to take a few small leaps with the script. To the stories credit however, it is always told through action and dialogue, which is a great improvement on the many title-card reliant silents of the time.Aside from the strong cast performances, the most winning feature is the mood and atmosphere created by GW Pabst and co. The cinematography, particularly in the back half of the film, is stunning, and the shadowy darkness captures the evil lurking beneath, while the softness gives it all a kind of depressing romantic charm, as if to say, even in this sad place, there is beauty. The misty scenes at the end bring to mind Von Sternberg's compellingly shot unromantic romance 'Docks of New York'. The old saying is that you can't polish a turd - ie. you can't make a good film from a poor story- but these types of films provide a case that with strong photography, you can certainly make improvements.

. . . when one could call a shovel a shovel without getting a Nastygram from the Thought Police, daring Germans (not Neo-Nazis, but Pre-Nazis) made one of the most decadent films ever, giving it a title sleazier than OCTOPU$$Y's. Nowadays you'd have to break through figurative (or, if there's any video stores left around, literal) firewalls to view a flick entitled PANDORA'S BOX. To put it as delicately as possible, the makers of this 134-minute silent epic (I viewed the complete film--NOT the censored 109-minute version that this IMDb page covers) are shouting out that their story is about CHARLOTTE'S HUNT, if you switch the first letters of those two words. The harlot in question is "Lulu," who kills men with the same anatomical feature used for slaying by the women of LIQUID SKY. Some may quibble that Lulu occasionally resorts to Lugers, but what the hey. A more salient point is the extent to which PANDORA'S BOX exploits then-rampant Anti-Semitic stereotypes on the eve of history's most famous Holocaust. A case could be made that PANDORA'S BOX is more accurate than Nostradamus in providing a complete allegorical outline of WWII in the Atlantic Theater, right down to Lulu's Christmas Last Stand foretelling the Battle of the Bulge.

The dancer and prostitute Lulu (Louise Brooks) is the mistress of the newspaper owner Dr. Ludwig Schön (Fritz Kortner) and lives in an apartment paid by him. When her former "protector" Schigolch (Carl Goetz) visits Lulu, he brings the opportunist agent Rodrigo Quast (Krafft-Raschig) that invites Lulu to dance in a play.Dr. Schön tells Lulu that he will marry the aristocratic Charlotte Marie Adelaide v. Zarnikow (Daisy D'Ora) and mesmerizing Lulu forces him to marry her. However, in the wedding party, Dr. Schön finds Lulu partying with Schigolch and Rodrigo Quast in their bedroom and he gets his pistol and forces Lulu to shoot him. Lulu is arrested and almost six months later, she goes to the tribunal for trial. Despite the testimony of Dr. Schön's son Alwa Schön (Franz Lederer) and his friend Countess Anna Geschwitz (Alice Roberts), Lulu is sentenced to five years in prison in a prejudicial verdict. But her friends cause a bedlam in court and Lulu flees. Alwa and Lulu decide to travel to Paris, but in the train, they are convinced to follow the crook Marquis Casti-Piani (Michael v. Newlinsky) in the beginning of Lulu's downfall."Die Büchse der Pandora" is a tragic masterpiece by Georg Wilhelm Pabst with the beautiful and talented Louise Brooks in the lead role. This actress seduces not only the men in the film, but the male viewers with her beauty and innocent and naive look. Last time I saw "Die Büchse der Pandora" was on 12 October 1999 and yesterday I was spellbound again by this lovely actress. My vote is ten.Title (Brazil): "A Caixa de Pandora" ("The Pandora Box")

"She carries it like a gift she doesn't think much about, and confronts us as a naughty girl. When you meet someone like this in life, you're attracted, but you know in your gut she'll be nothing but trouble," a famous American film critic, Pauline Kael, said about the main character of this unique, very special film. Today when seeing Pabst's movie, we can add that it may constitute nothing but trouble for those who lost the essence of art and a good judge of our modern perception...Georg Wilhelm Pabst, a stylized and independent director, one of the best ones ever, a master of psycho-sexual dramas, offers us here an unbelievable atmospheric experience. He does this at multiple levels. Although there is a story, a certain prefabricated chain of events, viewers are not limited in their views to concrete framework of action but, thanks to flawless directing style, we, as viewers, are led much deeper, into feelings of characters, into their world on screen. The whole atmospheric feast is possible to achieve in PANDORA'S BOX thanks to the director's unique ability to show life, to depict the various states of mind, the various motives for actions with the climax in the final moments where motives and actions become consequences and where individual principle clashes with the social one. Isn't that the absolute success of cinema? The content, based upon the plays by Wedekind, deserves a certain amount of attention, but, when I was viewing the film, hopefully like many other of its buffs, my principal focus was drawn upon the character of Lulu and the performance by Louise Brooks - one word must be said before further analysis - magical! There has been a widespread opinion that Louise Brooks' (whose Hollywood career ended quite early as a result of her deliberate decisions) performance is one of the most genuine ones ever found on screen. Yet, at the same time, it is a performance affected by certain compromise. Dr Paolo Cherchi Usai, a curator of the film collection, said once that "Louise Brooks was way too wild in a business that was way too tame." Fortunately, however, she had one great support - Pabst himself. Under his direction, she is allowed to give the very core of herself and her talent portraying a captivating, funny, delicious, illusive, lustful, sensual, overwhelming and, beside all sympathetic femme fatal. Ms Brooks' scenes with the closeups directed onto her face, for instance near the end at the candle and mistletoe, carry powerful impressions. From the very first scenes, we get to know Lulu as a naughty girl. Yet, we seem to like her due to her distance towards the things and events she experiences. There is a combination of fun and appeal, vamp's eroticism and girl's sweetness, dynamic tension and light atmosphere. For me, the most memorable scenes were the backstage sequence where she is not "going to dance for that woman" Here, let me again quote Ms Kael who referred to these moments memorably. "For sheer erotic dynamism," Kael wrote, those backstage scenes "have never been equaled." Lulu's lover and husband to come, Dr Schon (Fritz Kortner) persuades her to perform...In the aspect of Brooks' performance, there is a certain satisfactory focus on the supporting cast. What viewers get here is the very best merit of a silent production. Eye contact, mimics, imagery, all the cast occur to feel their roles intensely like in those few masterworks of the period. First, a mention must be made of Fritz Kortner who portrays cold, dominant, strong, strict, ambitious, easily offended Dr Schon who appears to be proud and independent yet prone to female weapons... The scene he dies observed 'as if' by us and the leading character is another milestone of the film. Carl Goetz gives a sympathetic performance as Schigolch, perhaps the character we all like. A simple guy who likes Lulu, do does not take any advantage of her, who does not do any serious harm and whose most touching dream is to taste Christmas pudding one more time... Franz Lederer is convincing in the role of Alva, Schon's son, another man who loses under the spell of femme fatal. Consider his moments when he willingly and reasonably wants to leave; yet, something calls him back directly into her arms...what a magical power of these female weapons... An interesting and a very daring character in the film occurs to be Countess Geschwitz - an open indication of a lesbian character. Thanks be to Pabst for the courage to show that! Her dance with Lulu at the wedding and many other scenes are particularly well played and deserve great praise. Daring for the business too tamed... The character who represents a macho, a sort of robot unable to feel much is Rodrigo. His most unforgettable scene is his first scene and a visit he pays to Lulu's - what a try of the trapeze act! What a prospect of muscles! What a naive joy in girl's eyes! PANDORA'S BOX is a movie I consider a must see, an atmospheric masterpiece that makes unforgettable impressions. And the leading character portrayed by Ms Brooks...Wedekind described Lulu as "the personification of a primitive sexuality" but I would not hesitate to say here that Pabst and Brooks changed this 'primitive' into UNIQUE and MASTERFUL. It's a story of desire and struggle, of fun and grief, of lust and disillusion, of anything that comes out of Pandora's Box. 10/10